Gaza gets its first proper cinema in 3 decades
Turkey picks true-drama ‘Ayla’ as foreign Oscar entry
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, Aug 26, (Agencies): Several hundred Gazans will be able to go to the cinema on Saturday for the first time in more than 30 years, albeit for one night only.
The Samer Cinema in Gaza City, the oldest in the strip but closed for decades, will host a special screening of a film about Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
The Islamist Hamas has ruled Gaza for 10 years and there are currently no functioning cinemas in the Palestinian territory where two million people live in cramped conditions under an Israeli blockade.
Ghada Salmi, an organiser, told AFP the one-night showing was “symbolic” of wider efforts “to bring back the idea of cinema to Gaza”. The movie theatre was built in 1944 but shut in the 1960s. The enclave’s remaining cinemas closed in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
There was a fire at one cinema in 1987 which was widely thought to have been the work of Islamists who consider cinema ungodly.
“The rest of the cinemas were scared to show films after that,” Salmi said.
Ironically, according to French historian Jean-Pierre Filiu’s 2012 history of Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Gaza branch -- from which Hamas sprang -- held its founding conference at the Samer on the Islamic new year in 1946.
Saturday’s film, “10 Years”, tells the story of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Salmi said it does not focus on the wider politics, instead telling a human story.
The showing has the approval of Hamas.
Salmi said the screening, at which men and women are not expected to be separated, is a one-off, but she was hopeful it could lead to something wider in the future.
In May, a rare festival showcased films focusing on human rights issues. Those screenings took place outdoors at Gaza City’s port. Other films have occasionally been shown in rented halls. Gaza is still recovering from the last of three wars with Israel in 2014, when more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed and much of the strip was devastated.
Seventy-four people died on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers.
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LOS ANGELES: Can Ulkay’s “Ayla” has been selected as Turkey’s official candidate for the best foreign language film Oscar, it was announced Friday. Based on the true story of a Turkish veteran of the Korean War “Ayla” follows its characters against the background of the war in 1950 and revisits them in this century.
The film tells the story of a soldier who risks his own life to save a young girl he finds half-frozen and on the verge of death, smuggling her into his army base. Despite being unable to communicate with each other the two form an inseparable bond. When the war ends and soldier must return home he cannot bear to abandon the girl but is forced to hand her over to an orphanage, hoping one day to be reunited with her. The pair were finally reunited 60 years later. Ismail Hacioglu stars as the young soldier with Cetin Tekindor playing him as an older man. Kim Seol and Lee Kyung-Jin play the eponymous Ayla as a young girl and adult, respectively. The cast also features US actor Eric Roberts.
The selection was made by Turkey’s Artistic Events Commission (SEK). The 17-person committee, which including Turkish film industry professionals as well as officials of the country’s culture and tourism ministry, selected the film from a pool of 13 films submitted for consideration.
“Ayla” is produced by Mustafa Uslu for local production company Dijital Sanatlar and will be released in Turkey Oct 27.
Turkey has submitted films for consideration in the Oscar best foreign language film category on 23 previous occasions but has yet to receive a nomination. In 2014 the country submitted Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Winter Sleep”.
The nominations for the 2017 Academy Awards will be announced on Jan 23, 2018. The ceremony takes place March 4.
Fatih Akin’s Cannes hit “In the Fade” has been chosen as Germany’s official candidate for the best foreign language film Oscar. The film has already garnered potential awards season buzz around the performance of lead actress Diane Kruger, who won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where the film world-premiered in official competition.
The selection was made from a choice of 11 films submitted to an independent nine-person jury appointed by national film-promotion body German Films. The choice was announced Thursday by jury representative Rainer Matsutani of the German Directors Guild at a press conference in Munich attended by Akin.
“In the Fade” tells the story of a woman (Kruger) whose life falls apart following the death of her husband and son in a bomb attack. When the police arrest two suspects, she wants justice and revenge.